New Mexico (NM) - 1. The Carlsbad Caverns

John has a MAJOR fascination with caverns full of fossils. For me, the view is similar to the rock and reef formations that you see when you snorkel – except for the fact it’s under the ground. Someone told us, “If you’re going to New Mexico, then you HAVE to see the caverns at Carlsbad – there’s no other place like it.” It’s for this reason that we planned to spend a few days in the southeast corner of NM.

The Guadalupe Mountain National Park straddles the 25 miles stretch of the TX-NM border and, once we crossed into NM, the drive was only about 50 miles to the city of Carlsbad (pop 26,000). The city has its base at another National Park called the Carlsbad Caverns National Park. There, we parked ourselves at the KOA just north of town and got ourselves oriented to the area. Both Parks are situated in the Chihuahuan Desert so just know this – this was definitely cowboy country!

The story of the caverns began millions of years ago with underground river passages. Over the years, the water from the river disappeared except for beads of water that drop from within the caverns. Eventually, the beads develop the ground into strange-looking columns that either rest like a rock or hang like an icicle - like this one:


The caverns create places for bats to rest during the day and there is one natural entrance to the caves where the bats come and go. Many are migratory and I gather most bats call this ‘home, sweet home’ in the summer and fall months. It was in the very late 1800’s when a local guy named Jim White followed a dark cloud of fluttering wings into the side of the mountain and discovered the caves. Being the entrepreneur that he was, he eventually mined the bat ‘guano’ and sold it as fertilizer! Imagine!

It wasn’t long after that Jim decided he could make even more money by making the cave a tourist site. By the early 1900’s, the story goes that Jim was lowering two people at a time via a bucket down into the cave entrance. I can only guess that the smell on the ride down as well as the tour must have been really bad – I mean how much bat guano could a tourist take? Thankfully on our trip, there were four elevators at the surface at the Visitor Center. The elevator took us down 750’ to the cave floor in just shy of a minute – luckily, far, far away from the original and still-existing bat entrance! Not long after you step off the elevator, you proceed to a chamber (room) that is 8.5 acres in size – can you believe it? 8.5 acres underground – amazing!

There are 8 different tours you can take at the Caverns – only two are self-guided. The other six tours are guided by Park Rangers and vary in degree of physical range. How about I give you an overview and then you guess which tour we took? (remember that I’m with a guy who favours both feet on solid ground at all times)…

So here are your choices:

1. the paved one mile walking path to four chambers that includes a (planned) blackout experience followed by an 8-story walk back to the Visitor Center?
2. the lantern-lit tour (lanterns provided) of the formations on a dirt trail with slippery slopes?
3. the ‘moderately strenuous’ event where you lower yourself by knotted ropes followed by a 50’ series of three ladders where you need to bring your own gloves, batteries and kneepads?
4. the tour where it’s mandatory that you bring a heavy duty C-cell battery flashlight and wear a headlamp and special footwear since the route is muddy (which really means slippery) and notes that one path requires a 15’ climb using a knotted rope?
5. the tour to a remote cave deep in the Caverns where it’s mandatory to wear gloves, kneepads, helmets and headlamps (supplied by the Parks Service) and you bring the aforementioned flashlight? or,
6. last but not least, the Spider Cave Tour where you can expect ‘tight crawls’ through small passages to see ‘bizarre’ formations?

OK, OK – so it isn’t that hard to guess which tour we took – it was the first one! Every tour guide worked for the National Park Service and our guide was VERY informative and proud of his tour-guide responsibilities. It was a bit chilly because no matter where you go in the caves, the temperature is 56 degrees. It was very difficult to take photos because of lighting underground so I don’t have many to show you.


But here’s a pic of one of the (shaky) stairways on our tour:















There was a lot of scientific stuff to learn about the rocks and the fossil formations. I was too much in awe of the view to catch all of the detail but I did note the science-type guys and gals didn’t say “awesome” as much as I did. Instead, they used the proper descriptive words like: stalactites, stalagmite, soda straws, draperies, flowstone, column, lily pads, cave pearls, helictites, aragonite crystals, rimstone dams and popcorn. I said, ‘There’s popcorn?” and a gaggle of those scientific-types looked around at me and I’m sure they were creating a blonde joke of some kind. John pretended he didn’t know me.

It was a great day and we spent many more hours there than we ever planned. There are about 100 caves in total with the deepest chamber being 1037’ below the surface. We only visited a few and only went 2/3 of the way down. At the surface, you would never know the caverns existed. The Carlsbad National Park itself is 46,766 acres and it’s amazing to know Jim White just happened to see those bats flying in and out back in the late 1800’s. He’d be proud today to know the Caverns were designated a World Heritage Site in 1995.

Well, I’ve rambled on enough about Carlsbad. What follows next is a wee story about Artesia and Roswell… m.

New Mexico - Intro

Twenty-five years ago, I went to Albuquerque for a weekend and vowed to return and explore ‘some time soon’! And so we left South Padre Island, TX on February 17, 2011 and traveled yet another 1500 miles north and west to the beautiful state of New Mexico where we spent five weeks. It is a place of diversity in matters of history, culture, geography, tourism and opportunity. The state license plate says everything - the “State of Enchantment”.

I can’t short-change the drive from South Padre Island in southeast Texas to the west end of the state. The drive was easy – all interstate. But the drive is similar to driving from Ottawa to Thunder Bay as it takes two full days to get across Texas. On Day One, we drove 360 miles north to Bandero County, referred to as “Hill Country”, just west of San Antonio. There, we connected with I-40 and headed directly west to Van Horn. Once we turned onto the I-40 on Day Two, we still had 350 miles to go before we actually reached Van Horn.

Once Hill Country was behind us, it wasn’t long before we saw our first mesa in the distance. John told me to quickly grab the camera and take a picture and so I did – as if it would disappear after thousands years! The front windows of the rig are big and wide and photos often surprise us in that they turn out OK – even through the window. The country side was everything you’d think – we were looking for John Wayne behind every bush!

After an hour, I had taken at least 10 (useless) pictures and the mesa was, well… somewhat closer. And then finally, it was there to our right and it still looked far away! Unbelievable that it took so long for us to get close enough so the mesa took up the full photo frame (without zoom)! Even so, you can see it was still a distance away:

Not long after, we turned right and headed north into New Mexico. The final landmark in the “Lone Star State” is the Guadalupe Mountains – at 8750 feet, the highest point in TX. We travelled along the Pecos River and all John could talk about were the old westerns when one of the cowboys described their camp site as, “just west of the Pecos!”

Just on the other side of the Guadalupes is the southeast section of New Mexico and the city of Carlsbad where our adventures with the state began. I have to split the news of this adventure into a few chapters – there’s a lot to share. All to say, I’ll start with Carlsbad and the Caverns and will follow with a few words on the very interesting little town of Artesia and the infamous Roswell. Albuquerque itself will scoop a chapter and our tours on the Turquoise Trail, to Sante Fe, to the Acoma Pueblo and Los Alamos may take a few more.

Early into the five weeks we spent in this beautiful state, John traveled home to Kingston for a week – he had a previous commitment to a local Home Show. During that week, my long-time gal-pal Mary joined me for a visit. So, as you read the following chapters and I talk about where ‘we’ went, my co-explorer was either John or Mary. There were even a few places that I even got to go twice – once with Mary and once with John! I was lucky.

Hang in there with me as I hope to keep you entertained… m.

Asleep at the Wheel

This is just a short note to let you know I’ve been asleep at the wheel on writing about our travels. It’s been awhile since I’ve focused on the blog. I apologize for that and note there are a few adventures I want to share. It just means that I haven’t been in the right place at the right time with the laptop before me with time to think and write. Well… the weather is the pits this week. So I plan to get ‘at it’ and share a few smiles with you – even if the stories are from February and March of 2011. After all, I need to share those before we get onto 2012, right?

In short, I got busy when we got home this spring through the summer and into the fall. Many of you know we ended up completely renovating the ‘lower level’ of the house as a result of a water tank leak in March. Through April, May and June, I re-newed old friendships at my fav local paint store and made new friends with carpet installers and restoration specialists. July and August were packed with boating, visitors and family events.

Plus we had two new babies arrive in the scene – our nephew’s wife Janet had a babe in August and John’s daughter Bonnie had her first baby in October. Plus, my God-daughter Amanda was pregnant and, despite the fact she didn’t deliver until after we had left for TX, I managed to get into Ottawa a couple of times to see her! All this wasn’t enough – no, no, no! In late September, Johnnie fell off his motorized bicycle and was in a neck brace for 3 months till just before Xmas!

Here are two pics of Johnnie – the first with his new bike (before the accident):


and the second as a proud G-pa with our wee Baby Ava – taken only 3 weeks after the accident and 2 weeks after her arrival:

Alas, after 4 years of retirement, I have concluded that the following saying is accurate – “Work? Never! When would I ever have time?”

Just after my last entry a year ago – the one about special get-together dinner events such as the Fish Fry – we traveled to New Mexico for five weeks and, on our way home, visited Oklahoma City and Little Rock Arkansas. Lots to tell you about those places. And enough excuses… on with the stories about our travels to New Mexico, etc… enjoy… m.